UK PM Apologises For Video Of Staff Joking About Christmas Lockdown Party
NDTV
PM Boris Johnson said he had been furious to see the clip and that, since allegations emerged in the media, he had been repeatedly assured that there had not been a party.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologised on Wednesday after a video surfaced showing his staff laughing and joking about a gathering in Downing Street during a Christmas COVID lockdown last year when such festivities were banned.
PM Johnson said he had been furious to see the clip and that, since allegations emerged in the media, he had been repeatedly assured that there had not been a party.
"I apologise unreservedly for the offence that it has caused up and down the country and I apologise for the impression that it gives," he told parliament, adding that there would be disciplinary action if it was found rules were broken.
Johnson and his ministers have repeatedly denied any rules were broken by the gatherings in late 2020, though the Mirror newspaper said Johnson spoke at a leaving party and that his team had a wine-fuelled gathering of around 40 to 50 people.
